


here come the fallen, here come the failed ones

by deanlovinglesbian (salopette)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Autistic Castiel (Supernatural), Canon Compliant, Castiel's True Form (Supernatural), Character Study, Demon Meg Masters, Falling In Love, Other, and her true form as well, but i love cas & meg & dean dynamic so there're glimpses of that, dean is mentioned a few times but not tagged bc it's not the focus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 15:56:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29903511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/salopette/pseuds/deanlovinglesbian
Summary: "On Earth there is love. It comes in many, many, many forms. There are simple loves, sweet like honey sliding over one’s tongue, like a child sliding down a swing. It’s beautiful like a spring day - but they aren’t Castiel’s favorites.He enjoys messier love more. Some sharper, like a mountain, some with tangles all over, with a few cracks along the road. The ones some might say are cursed or not meant to be - but keep going, strong, secure, sure. Love is chaotic. Love is a waterfall. Love is waves crashing on rocks, smoothing them over with time and care. Love is blooming. Love is… so much. Every time Castiel thinks about it - mind wandering while he’s supposed to fight, to follow orders and never think about more - his head spins. Love is overwhelming."- Castiel and Meg are both following orders and pretending they aren't questioning them. They meet and keep wondering - how does Hell work? when do human souls turn to dark smoke? can angels even feel? what is so wrong about kisses? why the "human only" signs? Then natural disasters happen. And love.
Relationships: Castiel/Meg Masters
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	here come the fallen, here come the failed ones

**Author's Note:**

> i've been told on tumblr that i wasn't a real megstiel people so i went back to my origin story (starting to write fanfic in 2014 bc i wanted more megstiel content)

Soulmates are named _soul_ mates for the same reason Cupids only do business on Earth: this is a human only thing, one among many more. There are no “gracemates” of any sort, and the more Castiel thinks about it, the more he wonders if there even is such a thing as friendship between angels. There is camaraderie. Something he noticed between soldiers as well, while he dared to look below, making sure no one else could see - just out of curiosity. 

That’s what it was. Curiosity. Yet another human only thing, though.

Angels don’t do curious. He paid the price. 

Yet curiosity came back knocking in his brain and Castiel allowed it back inside - every time.

On Earth there is love. It comes in many, many, many forms. There are simple loves, sweet like honey sliding over one’s tongue, like a child sliding down a swing. It’s beautiful like a spring day - but they aren’t Castiel’s favorites. 

He enjoys messier love more. Some sharper, like a mountain, some with tangles all over, with a few cracks along the road. The ones some might say are cursed or not meant to be - but keep going, strong, secure, _sure_. Love is chaotic. Love is a waterfall. Love is waves crashing on rocks, smoothing them over with time and care. Love is blooming. Love is… so much. Every time Castiel thinks about it - mind wandering while he’s supposed to fight, to follow orders and never think about _more_ \- his head spins. Love is overwhelming. 

Here, in Heaven, there is no love. Not the same kind, at least, and whatever exists above sure doesn’t deserve to share the same name. Castiel doesn’t feel like he sees humans do. He does know there is _something_ when he looks over his garrison and goes over their strategy one more time. There is _something_ when all their forms are melding - not really touching, but forming a whole which shouldn’t, under any circumstances, be ripped apart. There is _something_ , but Castiel can’t name it. 

He keeps people-watching, looking for more glimpses of humanity and some answers. The only thing which comes close are people in the trenches. Bodies sleeping next to each others under the same few blankets and trying to save the few sparks of warmth piercing through the coldest space. 

But are they _friends_? 

Castiel is handed over some more knowledge about war. So he wonders - about war, as he is asked to, and about war and people, as he shouldn’t but can’t help himself to do. 

Friendship is harder for Castiel to understand. Sometimes even the people he’s observing don’t know why they are friends. Sometimes the link is so obvious to all Castiel wonders why it took so long for them to say the words. And most of the time, it is in-between. Blurry. Autumn. Some see through the cracks of the leafless trees, some rush on the dying leaves risking the worst, some are careful navigating the fog, some let the rain fall along their skin, some don’t dare to go outside, not without the warmest scarf. 

It is a kind of love, a first step towards romance, maybe, sometimes - of that Castiel is sure. Because he never felt anything like that for any angel.

If angels can have friends, this is in a more practical way. Castiel doesn’t really have friends, he realizes. He knows the bond between him and Anna, and Uriel, and Ezekiel, and any other angel he followed orders from and with. And he could, from a human point of view, call them friends. But none would take a blade for him. And, truly, Castiel wouldn’t either. 

Castiel has been told he is weird, anyway. So maybe that’s why he doesn’t have any friends, nor can figure out what is and isn’t love. He doesn’t really care, this isn’t what he seeks. He enjoys the knowledge. Out of curiosity. 

* * *

Hell twists people - that’s the point. It pretends to execute a fair punishment on those who sinned, but it’s a trick. A self-fulfilling prophecy. human souls are brought there to be destroyed until they are worthy of the place. Until they are no more a sinner but a demon, an abomination, a dark smoke to warn everyone - here come the fallen, here come the failed ones. 

Meg is one of them. And now that she knows how to cut skin so it burns, how to break bones with the snap of her claws, and now she could say, with pride, that she has mastered suffering as an art form. Now - she gets it. She won’t think twice questioning where she belongs as her past is long, long gone - she could as well be born right there in the pit ; Azazel as a father, Alastair as a mentor, Lucifer as a creator. She forgot all about human only things, things she may never have known - couldn’t tell, couldn’t remember - yet there are a few feelings that never left: disdain, fear, and fury. 

Pain takes all the place for the first few years in Hell. It fills your body because that’s the only thing you’re fed, until you’re starving and craving and begging for it. This is a lingering twisted human thing : thinking you deserve it, and still wanting to feel something - anything. So if pain is the only sense you can get… you’ll gladly take it. 

It goes away eventually. As your grey clouds turn to black, suddenly you don’t even care. or you pretend to care less, because you know no one is coming to get you out of your cell. 

What are feelings if not a curse? One can even look back on their life during the moments of silence and loneliness, and wonders why they ever bother. That’s what Meg did, at least. She remembered how she used to get paralyzed by the mere idea of such moments - stillness, emptiness - she used to run away from them and take everything she could find, filling every single one of her senses until she felt high enough - on adrenaline, on drugs, on alcohol, on love. Fuck all that. 

She earned her spot in Hell, damn right she did. But this is what brought her here: feelings. She took them too far. Played with them like fire. Let them consume her. And that’s what made her one of the failed ones. Hell is merely sucking them out of her - and it’s a blessing. 

* * *

Stuck in his own heads, Castiel almost misses what’s going on on angel radio. Then they call his name explicitly, and he has to put all his thoughts back in a corner, far far away, like a teenager would hide porn under their bed, afraid of what would happen if the parents laid eyes on it. Castiel _just_ got back from being grounded, he doesn’t want to see Naomi again so soon. 

He’s been in command since Anna fell, and Castiel was waiting for the occasion to prove himself worthy of the title. Follow. Lead. Succeed. It’s not that difficult - Castiel truly doesn’t understand why he keeps getting distracted. 

The many voices fade until Zachariah is right in front of him. Probably not trusting Castiel to listen if the order isn’t said directly to his three faces. Which is fair, actually, Castiel may deserve the mistrust - but he is ready for forgiveness, and isn’t it what God praises first and foremost? 

“What is it?” Castiel asks.

Zachariah stays silent for a bit, probably judging how much intel is needed - and Castiel figures they’ve been talking about “what is is” for a while before he caught up. 

“Something about a Righteous man?” he suggests. He did listen. He’s an Angel of the Lord. He listens. That’s what he does. 

“Something about that human of yours, yes.”

“Isn’t he in Hell?”

“Exactly.”

Castiel doesn’t get it. Is it a twisted way to remind him of his own failure? They put him back on soldier-only duties since the human he had in charge sold his soul - a move he was supposed to prevent, but what was he supposed to do? The man has been so destroyed in his childhood, he might have well been a dark smoke wandering on Earth. Not to make excuses for his own faults, but he had quite a difficult case at hand. 

“Lead a rescue.” is all Zachariah says before he leaves.

No more about how Castiel is even supposed to do that. He never heard of a rescue before - not in the archives and not in the theory books - and he sure doesn’t understand why his human would get one. Didn’t Naomi say Castiel needed to accept the price of his defeats? He lacks data. But he won’t question it. A rescue it is.

* * *

Alastair doesn’t introduce the new student, because demons don’t do polite, but Meg doesn’t need one to know who just walked in. His soul isn’t quite crushed just yet, and she can still see everything she noticed when she met him on Earth. Recklessness - a brand of idiocy. Desperation. Suffering. His taste for sacrifice. His death-wish. She’s surprised to still see love there. Thirty years of torture, and Dean Winchester still cares so much for others. 

That’s part of his brand of idiocy, Meg guesses. But something glitters in her dark smoke at the thought of this man, who would sell his soul to save others - who did sell his soul to save others - having to torture another soul. Having to torture multiple souls. She’s enjoying every long, long, long minutes of watching Dean Winchester become one of Alastair’s finest students. 

Meg won’t admit it - demon and all that, can’t be caught thinking about a breath of fresh hair - but he did make Hell a slightly more enjoyable place. She can’t wait to meet the demon he will become. It takes some people longer than others, and none of them are expecting Dean to turn as quickly as his dad did. No - they knew he’d be a hard case, and that’s what makes every cut in his glowing soul so much prettier. But he will turn, eventually, and this day will be glorious. 

John Winchester was too easy. No fun. A man who can hurt his kids… well, he fits pretty nicely here. But Dean Winchester… Everyone knows there’s something different about him. He did earn his spot - he did sell his soul. Still, every wall crumbles in his presence and Meg can’t take one of her thousands eyes off him. It drags her in. Something feels so _wrong_. And not in the wrong-right way Hell twists truth and morality. If anyone asked Meg would deny it - they’re all denying it, pretending this man is just another soul, one among many similar ones - but there is something _biblically_ wrong about Dean Winchester’s soul being trapped in Hell. 

So Meg isn’t that surprised when it happens. It’s an unprecedented event they still could have seen coming. 

Hell shakes. A force is crashing into it from all sides and every demon can sense it, piercing through even those who haven’t felt a damn thing in centuries. It’s all consuming. Hounds start barking at what no one can clearly see and they don’t stop. They all freeze in Alastair’s room. Meg puts down her hand and the vein she was about to clog, and she immediately turns towards Dean. She senses his fear, electrifying, blurring even the grayest parts of his soul. She can’t tell if it’s the hounds’ growls resonating all around, or if he feels it too - the sharp feel of _something_ which isn’t demonic, nor even human. 

There’s blue, blinding light, and Meg can notice a few falling feathers when Dean Winchester’s soul is claimed from above. 

* * *

Castiel’s grace flickers like a light bulb once the rescue is done. He’s exhausted, but he did good. No angel will tell him that, but he knows he did good because they don’t bring him back to Naomi’s and he stays in charge of the “Winchester” mission. He gets to watch over Dean again, and they even tell him about Lucifer and the seals. He gets the green light to go on Earth and so he walks below in Jimmy Novak’s vessel. 

And he does good.

Until he doubts.

And then he doesn’t do so good.

Yet still does.

Existing is a strange experience since he’s met Dean Winchester. 

* * *

The feathers are familiar even through the warm lights of the holy fire. Lucifer doesn’t say much, but Meg understands that there’s a full-on-honest-to-god angel in front of her. And from the context of their encounter, well, she understands he’s the full-on-honest-to-god angel who took Dean Winchester out of Hell - that guy has always been a lucky bastard, of course he’d be saved by _angels_ of all things. 

Castiel - a name Meg will switch pretty quickly, because she’d rather go back to Hell than let the idea of God roll on her tongue - stares at her. They’re staring at each other, really. She didn’t get a good look at him when he brought a thunderstorm into Hell - quite busy trying to understand what was happening - but now he’s right there and… he _is_. 

If her soul was intact, Meg would flush - maybe her vessel can and does. But if her soul was intact, she wouldn’t see him as she does now. She wouldn’t be able to see through the blue eyes and dark hair and be amazed by the size of the force Lucifer trapped into a silly little circle of flames. Three heads. Wings. The same _light_ which never left her mind since she first laid eyes on it. 

Meg knows what she can’t look away, but she wonders what Castiel - whatever - sees in her. her soul is fucked up, she knows. She looks hideous, moving on. Is he all that fascinated by the abomination? By what pain can do to one? By what a human can become? Does he feel pity for her and all the other demons? Can an angel even _feel_? 

Lucifer is an angel - archangel even - and it does seem like it when she looks at him and all he created. For sure, one has to still be able to breathe in every feelings, all the pleasant ones, the bumping of joy in one’s chest, the chill of a smile sparkling one’s skin, the light of happiness in one’s head - all of what Meg forgot about, all of what Hell took away. It must be needed to create. 

Except if Lucifer does art in the same way she does torture. But angels wouldn’t relish in blood, nightmares, heartbreaks, or unachievable dreams. Lucifer isn’t a demon like her - his form doesn’t look so different from Castiel’s, it’s not even darker. Meg wonders - is he an angel? Or is he whatever an angel bathing in pain would become? And what of the other angels, following daddy’s fucked up goodwill like stupid soldiers? What of the angel right in front of her, fighting his brother under nobody’s order? 

* * *

  
  


“Remember me? I sure remember you, Clarence.”

Cas doesn’t need the nickname as a reminder. He doesn’t forget. their first violent meeting is clear with all its fire and honesty and walking over bones. He did warn Meg back then that trusting a father with a tightrope - one he walked in and fell from ; one she walked in and fell from. For whatever reason they meet again, and she’s still staring at him like she did the last time. And he’s staring back. Meg’s form is a constant burning like the stars in the sky, with porous pieces of smoke and skin floating all over. Though she seems to be constantly slipping away, it drags him in. 

They see each other. There are no other demons around her, and the Winchesters are talking about the plan, but Cas takes the time to _see_ her. 

There’s something lacking in her form from last time, which Cas assumes to be alike to betrayal. Humans feel it pretty strongly, and for someone - even a demon - as loyal as Meg was to Lucifer, Cas figures she’d experience something similar. He did, too, when his own Dad failed him. He didn’t _feel betrayed_ per se but… something. A demon, by essence, is probably more likely to be confronted to it than an angel. Cas wonders if demons have no more feelings at all, and if so when it happens, how, and why? Wouldn’t it be more painful to use their humanity to increase their suffering? If Hell is supposed to be Hell, why turn humans, whose lives are so full of flavors of hurt that their years can seem like an endless thread of tears

Cas never observed demons like he did humans - he couldn’t simply look and see them, nor in Hell, nor on Earth - and he usually has no reason to meet them. Now, he wonders - where’s the line between humanity and demonicy? 

They’re stuck in a corridor when the hellhounds start barking. They aren’t as loud as Cas remembers from when angels crashed into Hello, but they’re still clear enough for Dean to start panicking. His breath is raising, and not only because of the change of plan - because he remembers, too, and he remembers too much. Meg isn’t bothered, though. Maybe she wasn’t brought to Hell by them, maybe she went there after executing unspeakable acts - none of them having to do with any deal. He’s still wondering - one part of him into battle while the other is always distracted - when Megs approaches him and leans close. 

To kiss him.

Angels don’t kiss. Their forms don’t touch like that - they fall together like bricks, it’s nothing like the way human bodies can slide together, can grind together, both brushing and pushing into each other. And even if they did, Cas doubts any angel would try it. Touching, kissing - it’s intimate. If angels aren’t even friends, Cas sure won’t say they can have any form of intimacy.

Cas has seen kisses: fast and chaste on a cheek, long and languorous as the sun goes down, hard and harsh in darker places, wet and open on a kitchen counter, sweet and quick for wedding nights. But Cas has never _felt_ kisses. 

He knows Meg took his blade and only took his lips as well as a distraction - out of curiosity. He doesn’t really mind. He holds her and turns them around, makes sure she’s standing against the wall and tries out a deeper kiss, lips pressing and caressing and biting and open mouths and tongues playing and breathlessness. Out of curiosity.

Meg’s eyes - her vessels' eyes - are slightly gleaming when they part - Cas wonders if his own does too. But he sees behind that, he sees the black marbles, the steam, and the hints of sparkles hidden into it - Cas wonders if she can see his own grace fading, just slightly, almost like a wavering light. 

Kissing is a human only thing. A demon such as Meg has no business losing time and playing tricks to get her hands on an angel blade ; and an angel such as Cas sure has no business indulging her. It’s unfair, Cas thinks as they leave Meg to fight the hounds. 

He knows he didn’t get to feel the whole experience - lips warm or cold against each other, taste buds confused or so clear - because his senses aren’t quite human ones ; yet it felt good. So why only humans? What is so wrong with a few kisses for angels to be banned from it? What is so dangerous about a few kisses for demons to be ripped off it? 

* * *

Next time they meet, Clarence goes by Emmanuel and he’s once again sitting in a ‘67 Chevy Impala. Each time they’re pulled apart, they seem to find their way back together, like three magnetic fields. Dean Winchester has this effect on people - well, on angels and demons, and specifically on Cas and Meg, apparently. This is a strange song they’re dancing along : the macabre kind or the lively kind, Meg still can’t tell. 

Clarence’s vessel is slightly different - new clothes, not quite the same way to talk, not quite the same way to stand - and so is his actual form. There’s almost a veil around him, protecting or smudging the usually clear lines of his icy contour. The colors and the feathers are unmistakable. He sees her too, and though he seems almost disgusted by what is in front of him, Meg is glad. She doubts her distorted figure will bring the angel’s memory back, even put next to Dean Winchester’s green eyes, but there is still something…. nice. About being there. About laying her eyes on such grace. It drags her in. 

If Clarence wasn’t clueless and thinking he’s human - Meg’d like to press their lips together again. Dean would hate it, but they could both fit in the backseat of his fancy car and feel, once more, the way their vessels join each other in an unique silhouette ; and the way both their true forms can’t quite touch but still reach for it, still overcome all the space, still try, desperately, forgetting all about instincts and what they are meant to fight for. No rules. Just raw power. Just from a kiss. 

But there’s a time and a place. Actually, no - there’s no time and no place for an angel-demon meeting, and there’s even less of a time and a place for an angel-demon kiss. Meg doesn’t need to read the Bible to figure that out. Yet here they are, partnering up with a human, nonetheless. And all over Earth, Heaven, and Hell, there’s no time and no place for Meg to be, no one to follow along the crumbs of revenge with, but a strange thought which crosses her mind on and off - is that freedom? or another jail cell? 

Meg sits in the ‘67 Chevy Impala, no make out but she still finds fun in crossing her arms and building up the silence. Dean doesn’t want to tell Emmanuel the truth, which is weird. Meg understands, intellectually, it has something to do with complication in their relationship and unfinished business and a tangle of _feelings_. But what is he trying to achieve, exactly? Now that his eyes found the angel again, he won’t be able to look away and pretend it never happened - they both know that. It’s a boat they share, or whatever the idiom goes. Neither Dean nor Meg know how it’s gonna go from now on, but Meg is sure they’ll drown if Dean sticks to his not-a-word plan. Clarence sits in the front seat, no memory of ever being there before, yet he belongs. That much is sure.

It’s beautiful to see an angel get back in touch with themselves. Clarence seems to wake up from a long, long nap, one like angels and demons don’t need. There’s a stretch in the way he reaches for each demon, eyes sand falling like dust when he turns around and apologizes - _apologize to demons_ \- before they fall dead. When he’s done, his grace is so, so bright, no more veil tainting it’s colors. But Meg still notices the way he drops his wings and seems to try to hide himself from shame. 

_Beautiful_ , is all that crosses Meg’s mind. She hopes it doesn’t show on any of her faces. 

It doesn’t last, anyway. Trouble always follows the Winchesters, so of course Sam’s issue wouldn’t be your regular easy-peasy-angel-fixing kind of issue. No, Clarence got his memory back for ten minutes when he finds himself taking someone else’s burden. It’s quick - the way pain spread inside his grace and feathers start falling like sick leaves. Then he’s the one who fall, laying on a bed like a human. Vulnerable. 

Meg tells herself she needs to hide - she doesn’t have enough allies on her side, especially not after killing a few more demons to get to Dean - and even demons can use a rest. Truthfully, though, she sits on the chair next to Clarence’s bed, pulls her vessel’s feet on the side so some of her spores orbit around the angel’s light, and, well, she figures she might have a place to be, after all. 

* * *

When Cas wakes up, he wonders if he somehow gets into Hell. Not just reaching into it to raise a soul, but truly _being_ in Hell. It’s way too dark and hot in the room for it to be Heaven, and he could recognize these boiling dewdrops anywhere - they’re Meg’s. She must notice or sense a change - maybe the way the dust in the air turns to snowflakes - because she looks at him and they stare as blizzard meets thunder and fills the room. 

It’s not Hell, Meg explains, though she’s not sure how to describe the difference. As Cas understands it, both places are meant to lock away those who are deemed an inconvenience to society. But they’re on Earth, that’s one difference. And they’re sure that Dean and Sam Winchester are coming to get them - no being stuck here forevermore. Cas moves on to other questions after that as they never stop coming at him now that he has no more battle to fight. 

Most of the days Cas walks to the garden behind the building and lays on the grass with Meg. They look either at the sky and the birds, or the flowers and the bugs, rarely bothering to glance at each other and risk another meteorological anomaly. They sense all of each other’s colors whenever they’re in the same place. Even closing his eyes - his vessel’s and all of his - Cas can still feel the way the world moves around them, two entities who aren’t meant to be here, and surely not to spend long hours in quiet rêverie so close to one another. 

On her part, Meg mostly rolls her eyes and tries to hide her face by rolling on her front - but Cas still catches it, the poisonous spikes and the melting parts of her, both like glass and fog, both a dry alga and a sunflower. Cas tells her that in between his intense questioning. She tells him to either kiss her or shut up. He does either, sometimes both. Usually both. 

More natural disasters can happen around the world, and none of them would know. 

“What is your favorite flower?” Cas would ask. Then “why?” Or “do you think we should make a garden here?” ; “how come humans want to kill spiders so bad?” ; “you have been human, Meg, you should know.”

“Well, I was a shitass human. Demon now, remember?”

Cas couldn’t forget if he tried - and he doesn’t want to. As he looks around and around and gets amazed by every single one of his Father’s creations, he can’t help staring at Lucifer’s, right by his sides. Meg is a demon now. Used to be human.

“I don’t understand demons.”

“You’re an angel. Kinda comes with the job.”

The more it goes and the more Cas thinks the whole angel job is to not understand anything at all, but that’s besides his current point.

“I mean: as I understand it, Hell takes the sinners, right? And your king expects them to behave? Just like that?”

“That’s where the torture comes in, sweetheart.”

“For what? What are you asking of them, by twisting their souls?”

Meg shrugs. “To be bad, mostly. To follow orders. I don’t know, Clarence. Turns out I’m _also_ a shitass demon.”

“It’s okay.” Cas smiles. “I am a shitass angel myself.”

* * *

Magnets. That’s what Meg thinks about once more when she ends up on Dean and Sam Winchester’s couch. They found her without even looking for her - which kind of hurt, in a way Meg can recognize now that she’s not pretending she doesn’t feel anymore. Something has changed. Maybe it’s the time spent out of Hell, or the time spent in the mental hospital, or the time spent as Crowley’s prisoner - tomato, tomayto. Slowly and all at once, Meg _felt_. 

It was sweet when she was melding her wrecked body with colorful flowers, but now… now it sucks. She feels pissed. She feels a kind of understanding toward Dean Winchester, which might be the strangest feeling of all. She feels what appears to be the opposite of dislike. She feels afraid still, but not the demon-afraid-kind. It’s a fear which doesn’t stick to her black smoke of a soul and reminds it, constantly, of Hell. It’s brighter, somehow. A fear which could hold hands with longing - not longing for revenge, longing for… some kind of peace.

Or whatever.

Clarence asks her to rest, but Meg still manages to go outside - playing the “you can just look after me if you’re so worried” card while rolling all of her eyes. He follows. The place doesn’t have any grass so they find some dusty car whose doors are bumpy, headlights glasses on the ground, and wheels half flat - but still holding up. Clarence offers his hand for Meg to climb but she waves it away. Only once they’re both sitting up face to face, cross-legged with knees touching way too much for it to be accidental, does Meg run a claw along the angel skin - softly enough for it to be accidental though they both know it isn’t. 

“There was something between us the first time we met, right?” Meg asks in the silence. No wind today, only a few sun rays against her face - one she can _feel_ , even through her vessel, one she can feel in her _damned soul_. 

“I believe it’s called holy fire.”

She looks away from the sky and back to Clarence - he’s almost as bright yet never blinding. With no climatic disaster in sight, Meg doesn’t stop herself from reaching closer. Feathers are settling around her - touching but not touching though they try - and Meg rolls her eyes before Clarence speaks again, with the same blunt honesty. 

“I think so. However I couldn’t, and I never could, I probably never would be able to..”

“The point.”

“I can’t really find the word for it. Nor in Enochian, nor in any human language.”

Meg sighs - steam blowing into wings. “Me neither.”

Angel and human aren’t meant to be together, yet there’s still a word for what they can create together - nephilim. But what about an angel and a demon? And as Clarence pointed out forever ago - aren’t demons some kind of humans? When do they stop? Meg couldn’t even tell when she stopped thinking of herself as a human trapped in Hell but as a demon, and not any demon - a fucking follower of Lucifer.

“It doesn’t make sense, that’s what it is.” She throws between them. “If you ask me, your dad was a fucking bad writer.”

“No one is asking you.” Clarence counters - just for the hell of it.

“Well, he still should have worked more on his world-building.”

“If you ask me… I have to agree.”

“No one is asking you. But your opinion is welcome.”

Clarence laughs in this angelic way - waves of colors and sounds distorting the stillness of humanity ; an event that shouldn’t _be_ , shouldn’t even be possible. Yet it’s clear and sweet as it surrounds Meg. Something twists in her - she _feels_ , she hates it so much, but she also wants to feel that again. 

“Since when are you the polite one?”

“You’ve always been rude. While I used to,” she starts, raising a hand to her chest, before she stops right in her reminiscence, “actually I was always a bitch. But it’s a choice.” She shrugs like it’s no big deal. Like she isn’t basically saying she’s choosing to be less of a bitch toward this one angel. Just your usual demon day. 

She’s so fucked up. _This_ , whatever it is between them that they can both _feel_ , whatever it is that’s blooming like a dead rose - full of thorns yet miraculously finding a way to grow - is so fucked up. 

Meg is looking down at their intertwined fingers - yet not really theirs. She doesn’t want to think _this_ is fucked up. But how else are they supposed to call it? When she raises her head Clarence is looking back at her. And they both stare. Fascinated. 

“If Cupids could come to us,” Meg suggests under Clarence’s curious gaze, “in Heaven and in Hell, do you think we would be a match?”

“No.” Clarence immediately replies. She doesn’t have time to feel the hurt when he explains, still holding all of her gazes with all of his own. “Cupids get their orders from high. Not from God, that much I know now, it’s likely they serve an archangel, but they don’t do as they please, they’re only third class angels. Like soldiers they have purpose, and the arrows they throw have purposes as well. Humans like to think soulmates are symbolic but random yet build for one another, however soulmates are more like a tool.”

“Jeez, you truly know how to make a girl swoon.”

“To be honest, I would much rather it to be what humans describe. I used to believe in that, you know? The beauty in two souls floating towards each other in every story, in every time, in every place. Not the way they would complete each other, but the way they would help one another to grow, to reach a sense of peace no other soul could offer to them. The reciprocity of it all. So simple, yet so… spiritual.”

“Back to the point, you’re going too poetic.”

“Yes, sorry. But an angel, and a demon,” Clarence points at them both. “A broken, falling angel, and a broken, raising demon. What kind of match is that? What use could God, or archangels, or whoever, could make of that? What purpose would we have, together?”

“None. We would destroy everything.”

“Indeed.”

A beat passes. A long second, a short minute, but they both couldn’t tell. Time is a human only thing, one they can’t grasp.

“So you’re saying we wouldn’t be soulmates because we are too powerful for that?”

“It would appear I am saying so, yes. Or I guess we could as well not be soulmates because we are too much of a mess for it.” 

“Nah, I’ll stick to my version.”

Meg notices water dripping on the car under the clear blue sky. She immediately thinks she has come too close - finally, because all good things have to end, obviously - and her fire is turning an angel into a fucking puddle. Yet the angel stays tall, and she realizes it’s his vessel - blue eyes are wet and tormented. A falling angel, still believing he’s one to blame. 

“Wanting..” Meg starts tentatively. “Feeling… This isn’t being broken, Clarence.”

She barely believes in her own words, but he has to. Her, her wants, her needs, her feelings, all of that was supposed to stay a part of her human life. Her soul should be bleeding too much for her to experience it again - it should have run its course, it should be over. She had her time, she chose to be a bitch, she ended up in Hell. End of the story. She shouldn’t get to have that again, and she sure doesn’t deserve it.

But Clarence… Fuck. Angels are dicks, but this one, this one right there, staring at her like she’s the most beautiful creature he could ever laid his many eyes on ; this one murmuring verse humans wish they could come up with ; this one who fell because he wants to do the right thing so badly. This one deserves it. 

“Meg?”

“Hm?”

“A demon.. no.” He tilts all of him slightly, and the feathers around Meg are finally - finally - touching her. Not her vessel, but _her_. Her with her ugly faces and scars and open wounds and dark-dark soul which couldn’t be called a soul anymore. And Meg can reach with her own spikes and burning hot fungus and Clarence lets her do. “Someone who, after centuries in Hell, can walk the Earth and love is the farthest thing from a failure.”

Meg never said anything about _love_. But looking back on it - they both did say it, didn’t they? In all their words. In all their silences. In all the ways they shouldn’t even be near another. Love is a human only thing, one among many more. An angel and a demon are barely allowed to think about it. Yet they’re touching right now. And they _feel_. And the sky is still holding up above them, and all Heaven and Hell can break loose - they still wouldn’t let go. 

**Author's Note:**

> can you believe cas is the prettiest angel and he's in love with the prettiest demon and the prettiest human. epic.
> 
> anyway i hope you enjoyed it! don't hesitate to leave a kudo or comment :)


End file.
